Sarah Rainey meets the Justin Bieber lookalike twins who used their gap year to set up a YouTube channel that has earned them legions of adoring fans – not to mention a sizeable profit.
Stacked in a corner of Jack Harries's attic bedroom in Chiswick, south-west London, is a huge pile of letters. There are numerous boxes wrapped in layers of brown tape; padded envelopes with rattling contents; large parcels bearing international stamps. Most of them are unopened. Each one is addressed to him; his name lovingly felt-tipped on the front, surrounded by big, loopy hearts and the occasional lipstick smudge.
Most people have never heard of Jack Harries. The grandson of playwright Michael Frayn and journalist Claire Tomalin, he's had a few minor acting roles – in Channel Four's School of Comedy and a KFC advert – but nothing that would explain the sacks of fan mail in his room. Harries looks like an ordinary teenager: scruffy checked shirt, faded jeans, stacks of multicoloured bracelets snaking their way up his left arm.
He left school last summer and has spent the past 12 months on a gap year, holidaying in Ibiza and travelling to Thailand with his identical twin brother, Finn.
So far, so normal. But Harries is also a YouTube sensation, adored and obsessed over by hundreds of thousands of teenage girls worldwide. He started his YouTube channel, JacksGap, last July, with the aim of documenting his gap year through a video diary for his family and friends. It's harmless fun: just him, chatting to the camera about his daily life, with a few special effects and sketches thrown in. Fourteen months later, he's got 190,000 subscribers and his 28 home videos have been watched more than eight million times.
The end of the gap year?
What's more, a partnership with YouTube means Harries earns money every time someone clicks on his channel – and it's not an insignificant amount. He's currently making "up to double" what he earned each month in his old retail job at Apple; enough to pay for new camera equipment, travel the world without touching his savings and fund his entire gap year.
It's the twin factor that has made JacksGap such a money-spinner for the Harries. Both fresh-faced, tousle-haired Justin Bieber-alikes ("We're not Justin Bieber," they insist, "we just share the same fans"), Jack is the outspoken one with dreams of a television presenting job; while Finn, who's behind the branding and logo, is more reserved. Their subscribers are 88 per cent female, aged between 14 and 17, and "really avid"; so obsessed by the twins that they've camped outside the Harries' family home, mobbed an airport in Bangkok and set up hundreds of unofficial fan sites.
While the content of their videos might suggest otherwise – recent stunts include naked bungee jumping, balloon modelling and unicycling – JacksGap is an incredibly professional operation. The twins' bedrooms serve as their offices: they have an iPad each, cameras, lights and three computer screens for shooting and editing footage (both are self-taught). There is an odd collection of props from previous videos: a megaphone, a plastic skull and a bearded dragon named Sidney. Videos are scripted in advance and can take three days to make, and they spend up to two hours a day on YouTube, researching the latest trends.
For teenagers at a loss about what to do on their gap year, setting up a YouTube channel is a lucrative business. The website – which has 800 million unique users a month, watching more than three billion hours of video – now has 30,000 partners in 27 countries.
The partner programme, which was set up in 2007, allows YouTubers to take a cut of the money their videos are making and display targeted adverts on their channel.
When JacksGap hit 10,000 subscribers in April, the twins received an email from YouTube. "They gave us a username and password to log in to Google AdSense [the programme allowing users to earn money from online advertisements], and there's an account balance where you see your money go up and up," explains Jack.
The Harries twins aren't the only young YouTubers making money from their videos. From make-up tutorials to stand-up comedy and songwriting, they're part of a new generation of "vloggers" (video bloggers) who are harnessing the growing appetite among their age group for trendy, accessible online content.
What sets JacksGap apart has been its ability to tap into what the audience – teenage girls – wants. "If you master the social networks, that's how you get subscribers," says Finn. Together, the twins have 235,000 followers on Twitter.
But on September 26, life for the Harries twins will change. It's the official end of their gap year; the day they both start university. Jack will go to Bristol to study drama, TV and film, while Finn is studying graphic design at Leeds.
They have just under two weeks to make their decision. In the meantime, their days are packed with YouTube meet-ups, business conferences and finalising the plans for two new projects: a smartphone app and a new social network based on JacksGap .
1. Sophie Merry Known on YouTube as Groovy Dancing Girl, Merry's channel features videos of her "undercranking"; a speeded-up, robotic form of dancing. The 29-year-old, born in Dublin, started posting videos in 2007 and within weeks had more than a million views. Her dancing has now been watched nearly nine million times. "Surreal is the only word," admits Merry. Although she isn't partnered with YouTube, the indirect gain, she says, has been amazing. The pretty redhead starred in a jeans campaign for French clothing label Etam.
2. Charlie McDonnell Born in Bath, 21-year-old McDonnell is one of Britain's most prolific YouTube users. His channel, Charlieissocoollike, has 1.5 million subscribers and his videos have been watched 250 million times. McDonnell's videos are vignettes on subjects such as "How to make a cup of tea" and "What to do with long hair". After finishing school in 2007 he partnered with YouTube instead of going to university. McDonnell is ranked 44 in the top 100 YouTube channels worldwide, and his videos end with an outro by the actor Stephen Fry, who recorded the clip after admitting he was a fan.
4. Alex Day Day is a YouTube musician and songwriter, whose channel, Nerimon, has led to two top-20 hits in the UK singles chart. The 23-year-old, from Hornchurch in Essex, posted his first video to YouTube in 2006. He now has 550,000 subscribers and his 249 videos — funny takes on subjects such as his fear of dogs, the Twilight trilogy and learning magic tricks — have been watched 94 million times. Day, a YouTube partner, is the latest in a long list of young musicians who launched their music careers on YouTube, including American singers Justin Bieber and Lana Del Rey.
5. Olivia Ford Custard pies and a crazy French doctor have featured in recent videos by Ford, known on YouTube as LiviTheNerd. The 14-year-old from Southampton started posting videos nine months ago and has racked up more than 100,000 views. "I never thought people would watch me ramble on," she says. "Now I get messages from people telling me that I am their inspiration – I find this mental." Ford is partnered on YouTube with an external company called Fullscreen.net, which guarantees her a monthly salary irrespective of the number of views.